


Break

by EntreNous



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-02
Updated: 2006-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntreNous/pseuds/EntreNous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oz has broken up with Willow, but he still needs somewhere to go those three nights a month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Giles round at the late great [Male Slash Minis](http://maleslashminis.livejournal.com/)

Just because Oz has broken up with Willow doesn’t mean he gets to break up with Giles.

At least, that’s what it feels like when Oz says, “I can find another place to wait it out this month,” and Giles looks at him like he’s trying to end some special relationship between them.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Giles says after a pause.

“Okay.” It’s not like Oz remembers what happens or where he is those three nights when he’s gone wolfie. More like he thought it would be less awkward with him backing off from everyone, not just Willow.

He does wonder, though, if he’ll be able to ease into a new holding place for this time of the month when he starts UC Sunnydale next year. There’s no question that’s where he’s headed. He has a scholarship, though he hasn’t mentioned it to anyone except Devon. The dean’s office is holding the funds for him while he finishes up the credits he needs to graduate.

But even if everyone else is off to other schools -- he’s got Willow grouped in with Everyone Else for right now, until it stops hurting so much -- he thinks Giles will still be in Sunnydale. He definitely can’t imagine Sunnydale without Giles. So technically, Giles could keep up the wolf-sitting gig. If they both wanted.

* * *

The first night that month, Oz calls out, “I’m here,” but Giles just nods from his desk in the library office. Oz shuts himself into the cage.

The morning following, Giles hands him his clothes without comment, and then clears his throat. “I, er. There are muffins.”

“Thanks.” So Giles has picked up on the fact that someone gets Oz breakfast for the morning after, and he’s nominated himself to take care of it.

The muffins are lemon flavored, with poppy seeds that burst in his mouth when he chews.

* * *

The next night, Oz swings into the library just as Buffy and Willow are leaving.

“Sorry, sorry,” Willow says under her breath as they all pass each other. He can hear the note of hurt in her voice after she’s left for the corridor.

“So you don’t think he’ll, you know, escape and kill me in horrible gut-wrenching ways,” Xander’s voice sounds from the office.

“Not if he’s in the cage, as he always is,” Giles answers. That edge that creeps into Giles’s voice sometimes sharpens when he talks to Xander.

“Couldn’t you just bring up the possibility of a collar?” Xander asks.

“And what good would that do?” The clatter of a teacup being put down follows.

“I don’t know.” Xander sounds jittery, miserable.

“You’re not actually suggesting that we _leash_ him, are you?”

“We already keep him locked up,” Xander says, but the words come out of his mouth like a question he knows is going to be shot down.

Oz shrugs and heads to the book cage. “I’m here,” he calls out.

Xander’s curse, followed by the noise of dropped books, echoes into the library.

“My apologies." Giles stands with one hand holding his glasses, the other making an arc in the air in some vague gesture. Xander’s obviously taken off at this point. “Xander was simply . . .”

Oz nods, and Giles lets the end of the sentence drift away.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Giles says to him in the morning. Oz has to cough around a tongue that feels thick and itchy before he can ask why.

“I had to -- you hurled yourself at the wire enclosure, over and over,” Giles continues, and Oz realizes he must have gotten a tranquilizer shot that night.

“It seemed as though you might hurt yourself. Or that you might . . .”

“Right.” When Oz turns away and puts on his clothes, his hands shake.

When he pushes open the unlocked cage door, Giles clears his throat from behind the circulation desk. “I bought -- we have jelly doughnuts.”

But Oz is already headed off to find a bottle of water. He figures after that he’ll skip his calculus class, sleep off the haze in his head in the back of his van.

* * *

During last period, Oz gets a note from the main office, saying he should show up at the library earlier for his “appointment”.

For a beat, he wonders if Willow’s trying to work things out again. But no; that day in the hall she’d skirted around him, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor as Buffy kept up a determined, cheerful stream of chatter.

“I thought you might appreciate some pizza,” Giles explains when Oz walks in at the set time. There’s no sign of Xander worrying that Oz might eat him tonight, or of Willow accidentally-on-purpose running into him.

“Thanks.” Usually Oz doesn’t remember to eat before, and then in the morning he’s starving. After missing his chance at a doughnut today, he’d slept through lunch and then forgot to stop at the vending machine on his way to the library. He hadn’t felt hungry, just empty, but the smell of the pizza reminds him that eating sounds okay about now.

“It must be hard, these evenings,” Giles says as they each take a slice.

“Pretty much used to it,” Oz answers. He’s looking around for a napkin when Giles hands him one.

“Oh, and there are drinks,” Giles mutters. He hands Oz a soda, then takes a sip from a cup of water. He watches Oz closely, then asks, “Are you all right?”

“Always a little sore after,” Oz explains as he grabs another slice. He doesn't know for sure, but he guesses that the tranquilizer shot doesn't get anything more than a growl from him when he's in werewolf form. But when he’s changed back afterwards, the spot that was hit throbs all day, and makes him wince if he moves too fast.

Giles reaches out and brushes his fingertips against the spot on Oz’s leg where he took the shot. For a second, it seems like he’s going to apologize, again, and Oz wants to tell him to stop it, to just let it go, to quit making Oz seem like he’s broken and can’t be fixed.

But Giles just smoothes the material over the spot, back and forth. His gaze is curious and contemplative, but what Oz feels mostly is the contact. Nobody’s touched him, not like this, since things happened that night at the factory.

“Better get in the cage,” Oz says after another moment.

The motion stops, and Giles gets to his feet. “Yes, of course.”

* * *

Oz stretches when he wakes up on the third morning. He feels fine, not starving since he had the pizza last night, not foggy-headed the way it had been the day before with the dart gun.

“Here you are.”

Oz takes the clothes and dresses. Usually Giles turns away or leaves, but this time he turns back after Oz puts his jeans on to watch Oz’s face.

“Everything okay last night?” Oz asks as he slips his t-shirt over his head.

“There were no problems.” Giles hesitates. “You didn’t growl, or try to press against the cage at the start like you usually do. Paced a bit, stayed awake for the first half of the night. You seemed alert.”

“Huh.” Oz reaches behind his neck to scratch an itch. Giles’s gaze follows the motion, but then skims downward to the spot on his stomach where his t-shirt has ridden up.

Oz pauses. In the space of a second, he imagines asking Giles about how much of this -- the morning pastries, the pizza, the eyes that have been on Oz more keenly focused than ever these past few days -- is Watcher curiosity, and how much is something else. Maybe about what’s happening with him and Willow. Maybe about another thing altogether.

Then he drops his arm.

“Well.”

“I should get going,” Oz has started to say when Giles speaks at the same time, “This was the last night.”

Oz takes a light, shallow breath. “What was that?”

“Of this month, I meant. But perhaps we should look into alternate accommodations for you, for next time, for the year to come.”

Giles’s voice, as he walks away, makes this sound offhand, but Oz can’t help but wonder when he came up with that plan. Maybe when Giles found himself buying breakfast for Oz. Possibly when he had to shoot Oz to quiet him down, keep him from breaking loose. Could even have been last night, some kind of exchange between Giles and him when he was in the cage, Giles out, something beyond words that he’ll never remember.

“Sounds good,” Oz answers. Then he walks out of the library, out of the school, into the bright spring day.


End file.
